I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)

[moltuae]

Originally Posted by tintin

That's pretty much what I had done several years ago - again by Mackies - never looked back, just serviced with them every year or two since then.

Good to know your Mackie's rebuilt box has lasted!

After seeing how many parts are in the things, despite my faith in Mackies, I have to admit I was a little nervous driving back. I've been out in the car a few times since though and it's still perfect and smooth so hopefully it will last many years. Clearly they're confident enough with their own work to give a 3 year warranty.

I have to take it back to them for a service in 12 months (just to keep the warranty valid) but I'll probably take it back to them for all future services too now, time allowing.

[moltuae]

Ok, here's some of the photos.

Just to add: The box had an unknown history when I bought the car @ 80K miles (although it did look like it had been changed/painted recently at the time), so I had always planned/expected to have it rebuilt at some point. It worked perfectly (or so I thought) in the 6 years since and there were never any fault codes. I had the fluid and filter changed recently because it had been feeling a bit sluggish. After the fluid change it started making whining noises on acceleration and occasionally thumping between gears (still no fault codes). After re-checking levels and confirming the correct fluid and filter had been used, I decided it was time to either scrap the car or get the box rebuilt. Having already spent thousands on the car recently, spending even more to get the box fixed seemed the only logical (but perhaps not sane) choice. So I hit the road at 5am a few days later and headed for Glasgow.

In the first lot of photographs, Mackies had a problem with their camera unfortunately, so the photos are partially obscured. They bought a new camera soon after though so the rebuild photos are much better.




More to follow shortly ....

[moltuae]

One thing I found interesting, speaking to John at Mackie, was that, in their experience/opinion, these boxes are incredibly reliable and are capable of hundreds of thousands of miles. I wondered if that was because, from their viewpoint, they rarely see them in for repair, largely because owners choose to scrap the vehicles instead.


More dismantling photos ....

[moltuae]

[moltuae]

In this set of photos you can see some little roller bearings that fell out on to the bench. Apparently that's not supposed to happen

They told me there was also a lot of metal particles in the box too .... so a refurb was definitely needed it seems.

[moltuae]

[moltuae]

[David's8]

I had a similar chat with John at Mackies about these boxes and he, as with you, told me that there isn't a generic problem with 5HP24 boxes and they do see high mileage boxes - maybe that's probably because the ones they do get them in for servicing are the ones which last and you may be right that unserviced, failed boxes don't get taken in for repair..